The Best Cure For Sickness
by Rainstorm Amaya Arianrhod
Summary: Kel really should have known better than to take part in a snowball fight when she had a cold, even if she did mean to get revenge on someone. KD


**A/N:** Seriously fluffy Kel/Dom, a Christmas/New Year present for the one, the only, the amazing Emmegan. Merry Christmas, sweetheart. Reviews are love.

**Disclaimer:** _Not _mine.

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"_Kel?... Don't move."_

"_What? Is there a spider on my shoulder or something? Just flick it off-"_

_Complete silence. Then cheers and wolf-whistles._

Later, a man opens the door, and slips into the darkened room. He is tall, broad-shouldered, blue-eyed. It is dark outside, a winter evening, and a single candle burns next to the bedside of the woman whose room it is. He enters the circle of candlelight, carrying a steaming mug of... something, moving quietly in order not to wake the woman, who is lying in her bed, hazel eyes closed. She is feverish, too hot, but not asleep as the man thinks, and her eyes open and her head turns as he enters.

The man with blue eyes sighs, locating a stool to sit down on. "I was hoping not to wake you."

"I wasn't asleep, so there's no way you could not have woken me," the woman answers, trying to sit up. The man stops her, and lays a cautious hand on her forehead briefly.

"No, stay lying down, Kel. Mithros bless, you're feverish. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have let you take part in that snowball fight-"

Kel coughs, and says with some asperity: "Do you think you could have stopped me? It's not your fault, Dom. I had a cold anyway."

Dom smiles. "We-ell, no, but at least I shouldn't have stuffed snow down the back of your coat."

She laughs, and then sneezes. "You're allowed to say sorry for that! It's very quiet. Where's Neal? Where's everyone else?"

"I sent them away. You're ill, you need quiet. I did ask Neal about healing you, but Meathead –in his eternal wisdom- says he can't do anything for you right now except send you this." Dom indicated the steaming mug, and Kel wrinkles her nose.

"Do I _have_ to drink it?" There's a slightly peevish note to her voice now. Kel is used to most healers' tortures, but maintains that Nealan of Queenscove makes his teas disgusting on purpose, possibly as a rebuke for getting ill in the first place.

"Yes," her visitor says uncompromisingly, and helps her to sit up, handing her the mug, not letting go of it until he's certain she has a good hold on it. "Careful, it's hot."

"Domitan of Masbolle, are you babying me?" Kel demands, after the first unpleasant sip.

"Possibly, Protector of the Small."

"I hate that nickname," the Protector of the Small remarks, drinking more of the medicine. Her nose crinkles involuntarily again at the taste. "If you're treating me like an... invalid... because you think it's your fault I'm ill, please don't. I mean- it's not your fault, so why should you? Eeugh," she adds, after a particularly sour-tasting gulp.

"If you drink it all, I'll kiss you," Dom says, completely ignoring her comment.

Kel nearly chokes on her tea, and splutters. "You'll- you'll- Domitan of Masbolle, what on earth makes you think I want that?"

Dom looks at her and grins mischeviously. "You didn't seem to mind earlier, when you got stuck under the mistletoe."

"You mortally embarrassed me!"

"I noticed," Dom acknowledges cheerfully. "The mask completely went. You did get revenge on me with the snowball fight, though. So what do you say?"

There is a brief pause. Dom gets up to shut the shutters and draw the curtains, and while he's in the middle of this, Kel says in a warning tone: "You'll catch it. The cold."

He turns, one eyebrow raised quizzically. "Is that a yes?"

"Well... yes." Kel looks at the rest of the cough medicine, and drinks it down resolutely. "There," she says, satisfied. Dom comes back to sit beside her. Gently moves an errant strand of brown hair out of where it's getting into her eyes, turns her face towards him, and kisses her, properly. Like he didn't have time to do this morning under the mistletoe. They break apart.

Dom grins. "Feel better now?" Kel rolls her eyes, and smiles, but when he gets up to go, she clutches his hand.

"Stay? Just for a bit?"

"All right." He looks around. "But not on this stool. Move up, Protector of the Small!"

Dom half-sits, half-lies on top of the covers, his head resting on Keladry's and his arm protectively around her shoulders. She leans against him, sleeping her fever away. And even when he knows she's soundly asleep, he doesn't have the heart to leave her.

He turns his head to the side, and blows out the candle.


End file.
